Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Nobody wants to have beers with either one of them

by digby

It occurs to me that with the public holding both parties, the press and the two presidential candidates in contempt and believe that none of them are honest and trustworthy, it may just be that at the moment people are making the general statement that everyone except the people they know in their own lives are a bunch of lying swine. In other words, maybe it's not personal.

I recall Bill Clinton had terrible personal favorability ratings in office and high job approval ratings at the same time. So I wonder how people are deciding this presidential race? Obviously they mostly choose the candidate nominated by their party. That's just how most people commonly sort through this. But for those who don't vote party line, with both candidates being disliked personally, you wonder what metric they might use.

This week’s Post poll, for instance, found that 62 percent of Americans say they don’t think Trump “is qualified to serve as president,” while only 36 percent say he is qualified. By contrast, they say by 60-39 that Hillary Clinton is qualified. Meanwhile, they also say by 61-30 that Clinton has the “better personality and temperament to effectively serve as president.” Previous Post polls have shown similar findings.

Meanwhile, a CNN poll from July found that 67 percent said Trump does not have “the right experience to be president,” while 64 percent said that Clinton does have the right experience.

He goes on to note that the only person in recent decades who has had comparable numbers to Trump and still won was Dan Quayle.

He doesn't make a judgement that this will be decisive but does suggest that it should at least be noticed:

Still, one thing we do know is that the vast gap in perceptions here — large majorities view Clinton as qualified and fit for the job, while comparably large majorities view Trump as unqualified and unfit for it — continues to be neglected in commentary about how historically disliked the two candidates are. There may not be any precedent in recent decades for a major party nominee to be seen as unqualified by such large majorities. That may not end up mattering in the end. But it seems like another important data point in assessing how unusual, or even abnormal, the Trump candidacy really is.

Indeed. It's hard to believe that Clinton is so disliked personally that a majority of people would vote for an equally disliked person they don't believe is qualified to do the job. But maybe they do hate her just that much.